The Ryo Myths Book Tour @Psquaredbooks @GoddessFish

The Ryo Myths

by Perrin Pring

Appointment at the Edge of Forever

Filion felt safe in his role as a Dream Searcher. He was paid to venture into other’s dreams and exert influence over individuals whom he would never meet in the flesh.

But that was until he received The Summoning. Filion has been called to track down and protect Ryo, the last of the Chozen. She is the only hope of preventing a tide of evil driven by the Afortiori and the prospect of universal slavery if they aren’t stopped.

Time is ticking and Filion has no idea of how to find Ryo let alone how to protect her, yet destinies of planets rest in her hands. Enlisting the help of a rag-tag band of mercenaries, Filion will set out to search the wastes for Ryo. Together they will confront an evil whose power they just might have fatally underestimated.

Tomorrow is Too Late

I was a natural flier, I could take a punch, and I was smarter than most. Within five years I was a full-fledged pilot. On my last assignment, I was Master Pilot Eri Everfar, commanding pilot of a class B Federal war ship, the Seeker, and that’s where I met him, Drakier Lu…

Filion and his new friends have escaped Bok and are stuck in an asteroid field that isn’t supposed to exist. They’ve almost run out of fuel, their water supply is seriously depleted, all of their food has been destroyed, and the girl they’d just risked everything to save, Ryo, is dead.

Captain Eri’s former lover, Drakier Lu, has been promoted to Master Commander of the entire Federal Fleet, and his assignment is to find and capture the Dark Horse. Captain Eri has been identified as a Tiori, and she and her associates have just become the Federation’s most wanted. Things aren’t what they seem though, and the line between good and evil blurs as the players’ true motivations come to light.

Filion and the crew return, traveling the galaxy and dodging the Federation and the Tioris, all the while searching for a rogue planet that may or may not be harboring the one person who can save them all…

The Degrees of Destiny

When I was on Lamu, I inhaled an Afortiori’s vileness. That blackness will be what allows me to win. I will use their own evil against them. Because of this I am tainted. I am but a degree different from what I fight, but in that degree, hangs the balance between universal slavery and Free Will.

Having fled from Lamu only moments before its destruction, Filion and his friends find themselves hiding in the shadows as the Federation and the Afortiori mobilize against their worst enemy, The Etulosba and its crew. The Etulosba, Ryo, plans for her final battle. She was engineered to fight for Free Will, but to win that war, she will have to become what no Chozen was meant to be – an Afortiori. Caught in Ryo’s wake, Captain Eri is torn between leading her crew and confronting Drakier Lu, her former lover and torturer. Will she be able to overcome what he did to her, or will she fail, thereby becoming what he made her and letting down Ryo, her crew, and ultimately, the universe? Filion and the crew return in the final installment of The Ryo Myths. Join them as they begin a journey that not all of them will survive.

Appointment at the Edge of Forever

She barreled blindly through the forest, not knowing where she was going, only that she had to go. She had to get away, away from whom she didn’t know, but she had to move. They were watching her.

Memories flooded through her. She was on a ship, she was in a car, she was healing the sick, she was giving orders, she was lost. These memories weren’t hers, yet they felt so natural. They felt so real. It was her, Ryo, in those memories, but she couldn’t recall any of them any more than one could truly recall a dream.

She stopped running. Her side ached from the exertion, and her right leg still bled painfully. She peeled back the dark, sticky dress. The cut was deep. It wasn’t going to heal on its own. Then the bubbling came back.

Her hands moved over her leg, and she gasped. The bubbling grew, the hotness, the confidence, the power; all of it came back. She closed her eyes and the pain peaked, then it was gone. She waited several breaths, and then finally opened her eyes. Other than the dried blood and torn dress, one would never have known her leg had been injured. The skin was flawless without even a hint of a scar. She looked at her hands. She had known exactly where to put them. It was as if she had done this every day of her life…

She stood up and quickly sat back down. Her legs shook, and her breathing was ragged. What was happening to her?

Who was she?

Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Perrin Pring, author of The Ryo Myths trilogy.

Hi Perrin, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Please tell us a little about yourself and your background?

Well, I spent the first 18 years of my life in Colorado, and have lived in Massachusetts, Wyoming, Montana, Washington State, Hawaii, and California since. I love to be outdoors, and my current favorite thing to do is practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is a grappling martial art. I love to read. My entire life I wanted to be a writer, and I finally discovered, years before getting published, that I actually was one.

What were you like at school?

I never really liked school, but my mother always impressed upon me that until I graduated, it was my sole job in life, so I did it well. Looking back at it though, I can’t believe I made it through. Sitting for eight hours a day for years on end would be hell for me now.

Were you good at English?

I liked English, but I was mostly a B student in it. I had a pretty poor grasp of grammar while I was in school. I also often wrote about topics completely counter to my professor’s views, which didn’t help my grades either.

What are your ambitions for your writing career?

Well for a while it was to get a traditional publisher. Now that I’ve done that, I think the next thing I’m going to pursue is getting an agent. I’m expecting waves of automatic rejection emails, but I’ve got a better chance now than I’ve ever had, so I’m going to go for it.

Give us an insight into one of your main character. What does he do that is special?

I have a variety of main characters in The Ryo Myths, but the one I am most awed with is Captain Eri. She is the character who has had to overcome the most, and she travels that path with grace and humanity, despite the fact she isn’t human. The further I developed her character the more depth I realized she possessed. I wrote her to show myself, and others, that even the most terrible of circumstances can be navigated.

What are you currently working on?

I’m currently working on a stand-alone book about time travel. It’s really fun, and centers around history and food. It’s also a romance which is kind of neat. Visit my blog for more updates!

Which actor/actress would you like to see playing the lead character from your most recent book?

Oh I have no idea. I’m not really up to date on the Hollywood scene. The only thing I’d hope is that the casting would be done so not all white people are playing the main characters. Captain Eri is described to have incredibly dark skin, and I would hope that whoever they chose to play her would also have that characteristic. I also hope whoever played Captain Eri would be a descent actress. I know there are tons of people out there that meet those two requirements, so I’d hope they’d pick the best candidate.

What made you decide to sit down and actually start writing?

I’d been playing with the idea of writing a book that married science and magic for a several months, and I finally had the time to start it in the fall of 2010, so I just sat down and did it.

Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?

For a while I was working seasonally, so I’d have several months off in the winter. When that was my life, I would just get up, write for several hours, maybe do some part time work to make a little extra money, workout and then repeat the cycle. Now that I’m no longer working seasonally, I have to find time to write around my day job. The nice thing is that I still tend to have more time in the winter, and my schedule changes every few months. Sometimes I start work at 5 pm, and when I’m working that schedule, I usually find myself very productive, in terms of writing, during the day prior to me going to work. When I start work at 8 am I’m usually too unfocused when I get home to do much good writing.

Where do your ideas come from?

Everywhere. I’m an experience junkie. I want to try everything. If I hate it, it’s fine, I’ll just use it in my writing later, but I also try a lot of new things that I love, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Korean food being two of those things. I also read, a ton. I watch a fair amount of sci-fi TV shows in the winter, which sometimes inspires me. I also love to travel and meet new people. I believe in the Hemingway style of writing, which is if you aren’t out there doing things, what do you have to write about?

Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you?

I hate outlines. When I was in junior high I used to have to turn in an outline prior to writing an essay. I would just write the essay then write an outline based off of it and turn that in and just be done with the essay a few weeks early.

I will diagram parts of stories I’m having trouble with. I have a white board which I mark up constantly when I’m having trouble with certain characters or plot points. I also have a notebook that I’ve started making notes in, but in general, I just sit down and write. I’ll have certain points in my stories I’ll know I need to hit in order to move the story forward, but the path between those points is often fluid and surprising, and I love that.

What is the hardest thing for you about writing?

The editing, without question. It takes forever for me and is incredibly tedious.

Do you read much and who are your favorite authors?

I try to read at least 50 books a year, not including my own, and all the authors I listed above fall into the category of authors I love to read.

For your own reading, do you prefer eBooks or traditional paper/hard back books?

I love paperbacks, simply because I love used book stores. I have a running list of books I want to read, and every time I find a used book store, I love poking through the shelves to see what I can find. It’s like a treasure hunt. I like paperbacks more than hardbacks because they are easier to travel with, and I’m usually on the move. I don’t mind ebooks at all, and I went through a period this spring where I read a ton of them on my phone, but you can’t treasure hunt for them in a dusty book store, so they aren’t my favorite. I also listen to a lot of audio books, which is an entirely different experience than reading based on how well done the narration is.

What book are you reading at present?

I’m reading Tana French’s The Secret Place.

Tell us about the covers and how they came about.

Originally the first Ryo Myths book, Appointment at the Edge of Forever, had a different cover. My friend Brian Hogan later offered to design covers for the entire series, and he re-did Appointment at the Edge of Forever’s cover so that it matched the covers of Tomorrow is Too Late and The Degrees of Destiny. Brain wanted each cover to highlight an important aspect of its book, and I think he did a great job. I love the covers, particularly The Degrees of Destiny’s cover.

Do you have a trailer?

I tried a book trailer once, but my skill isn’t in video editing.

Do you think that giving books away free works?

I’m not sure. I’ve given away a bunch of books, both paperbacks and e-books, and I always ask for a review in return. I rarely get a review from whoever got the book, so I’ve limited my giveaways to e-copies because it’s more economical.

How do you relax?

I love to be outside, read, and I love practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. When I’m really stressed, doing a few hours of grappling usually exhausts me to the point I’m clam, and I find ground fighting very fulfilling because I’m always learning. It’s humbling as well. I fail a lot in jiu jitsu, and that translates to the rest of my life. As writers, we get a lot of rejection letters, and bearing those rejections has become easier since I’ve started jiu jitsu.

What is your favorite quote?

I don’t know if I have a favorite quote, but the last one I wrote down was from Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream:

“Being against evil doesn’t make you good.”

What is your favorite movie?

I don’t know if I currently have a favorite, but I grew up watching James Bond movies. I know the old ones are incredibly sexist and racist, but I loved all the place and things Bond got to do, and now when I’m sick or just needing to zone out, I put in a James Bond.

Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to take part in this interview.

Perrin is the author of The Ryo Myths, a sci-fi/fantasy trilogy that has been heralded to engage both nerds and non-nerds alike.When not writing, Perrin enjoys drinking coffee and swimming, although usually not at the same time.